Chapter 23. Molly
I put my phone down beside me and look at myself in the mirror across from my bed. I’m naked, surrounded by sex toys, and grinning.
Seth is single. And he’s so incredibly hot.
But more than hot, he’s… known to me. I know him. I like him.
And I want him to call me again. I want him to call me all the time.
My excitement feels so new and tender that I don’t want to tell anyone what happened—not even Dezzie and Alyssa.
I want to protect Seth. He just broke up with someone, and to outside eyes it might seem disloyal or desperate to fall into the virtual arms of an ex. But I also don’t know how to explain the intimacy of what happened.
It feels intensely private. Just for us.
I clean my toys, take a shower, and tidy up my room. I have a burst of energy that manifests in a desire to clean my house, which I do with unusual gusto and attention to detail. I clean it like I would if Seth were visiting. Seth has always been one of those people who can’t tolerate mess.
I wonder what his apartment looks like. I wonder what he’s doing right now.
Probably working. Which is what I should be doing.
I grab my laptop with more purpose than usual.
My only new email is from my new “intern,” Becky.
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, June 22, 2020 at 3:06pm
Re: Subject: Molly, meet Becky
Dear Miss Marks,
I shiver in horror at this salutation. Does she think I’m seventy years old?
I cannot overstate my gratitude to you for this opportunity. I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment to express my awe at your talent and body of work.Carelessis one of my favorite films of all time, and I can’t believe how young you were when you wrote it. I am so excited to learn from a woman with your tremendous accomplishments.
I’m attaching my CV. Please let me know the best way to get started.
All my best,
Becky
I’m going to have to get young Becky cursing and writing four-word emails or she’ll never make it in this town.
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, June 22, 2020 at 3:15pm
Re: Subject: Molly, meet Becky
Hi Becky—I’m excited to work with you. Let’s get started with a phone call—say, Wednesday after 10am PT? Let me know your avails.
And if you call me Miss Marks again you’re fired;)
-Molly
As I have no further emails, this constitutes work for the day. I place an Amazon order for Busted so I can reread it, then resume my Real Housewives marathon while daydreaming about Seth.
I wonder if he’ll call me tomorrow. Wake me up with sweet words.
I go to bed with my ringer on, so I don’t miss it if he does.
But in the morning, I wake up with no missed calls.
Instead, there is a string of texts from my mother.
Mom:Good morning my darling baby.
Mom:I had a dream about you last night. We were shopping in Miami for your sixteenth birthday. You got that sheer lime-green shirt that always made your armpits stink. Do you remember that shirt? HA! And then we fell down a sewer.
This is not the kind of sexy content I was hoping for.
Mom:I miss you.
Mom:Someone at Publix yelled at me and Bruce this morning for wearing masks!
Bruce is the man she’s been seeing. They met when she sold him a mansion a few houses down the street from hers. Over the course of the pandemic, her “I” has slowly morphed into “we” as they’ve spent more and more time together. I guess now they are at a “shared trips to the grocery store” level of courtship.
It’s cute.
Mom:Can you believe it?? YELLED.
Mom:No one here will take precautions. We are all going to get the plague.
Mom:Are you sleeping?
Mom:Call me when you’re up!
Mom:If you want to.
Mom:Love you!-Mom
I putter to the kitchen to make tea. I call her back while I’m waiting for it to steep.
“Hellooooo!” she sings on the first ring. She always answers the phone like she just drank six Red Bulls.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Have you heard the news?”
“I just got up.”
“At noon?”
She gets up every morning at six to work out on her twenty-year-old elliptical and is on to her work emails by seven, including on the weekends. She found the lackadaisical schedule of a creative professional horrifying even before Covid. Now that I have nothing pressing to do, she thinks I’m basically in a coma.
“It’s barely nine a.m. here,” I say. “Relax.”
“You’re sleeping your life away!”
“I have nothing to get up for!”
“Go for a walk! Maybe you’ll meet a husband.”
She’s still harassing me to find love. Like she thinks I purposely avoid it. Like she didn’t do exactly that for nearly two decades.
“Don’t make me hang up on you,” I say.
“Anyway, have you heard the news?” she asks.
“You just asked me that.”
“Seth Rubenstein was left at the altar,” she stage-whispers. “I heard from Jan Kemp at the store that—”
“Seth was not left at the altar,” I interrupt, rubbing my eyes. “His fiancée broke up with him.”
“Jan says he’s heartbroken!”
“How would Jan know?”
“She’s best friends with Bonny O’Dell,” my mother says triumphantly.
Bonny O’Dell is Seth’s parents’ next-door neighbor.
I know that I should sidestep this conversation, but I have not had caffeine and my wits are not yet fully about me.
“I heard it was amicable,” I say.
“Heard from who?” she asks suspiciously.
“Uh… Seth.”
There is a long silence.
“Seth Rubenstein?” she asks.
“Um, yes, Mother. The Seth that we’re talking about.”
“Why were you talking to Seth Rubenstein?”
“We’re friendly. He emailed me about something else, to ask a favor, and it came up.”
“Baloney.”
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing.
“What are you talking about, baloney?”
“A man doesn’t just email asking for some favor the day he’s left at the altar.”
“Which, as we’ve established, did not happen.”
“You be careful with him. He’s slippery.”
“Oh good God. He’s maybe the least slippery person I know. Why do you have this axe to grind with him?”
“Because he’s a divorce lawyer. Have you ever heard of one single nice divorce lawyer?”
“Well, luckily his job is utterly irrelevant to your life.”
“Not if he’s emailing my daughter to drown his sorrows.”
“Okay, Mom. He’s madly in love with me. You figured it out.”
I will not deny that the idea of this makes me giddy.
“Oh, he is for now, maybe. Until he divorces you and ruins your life. Which is his career.”
“Okay, Mom. Thanks for the tip. I guess I won’t marry him after all.”
“He deserves to get left at the altar, now that I think about it,” she says, really on one now.
“Yep. Deserves to be in jail, actually. I have to go.”
“You do not,” she counters.
“I do. Love you, Mom. Bye.”
I hang up and shake my head. But I am the slightest bit pleased that she thinks there’s something going on between the two of us.
My phone buzzes again with a message from Dez.
Dezzie:OMG have you guys heard about Seth Rubenstein????
Alyssa:No!
Alyssa:What happened?
Dezzie:His fiancee left him
Alyssa:During quarantine???
Dezzie:Yes! Rob called him with a referral for his nonprofit this AM and Seth was apparently despondent
I do not enjoy hearing this. Poor Seth. However, I can’t help but feel that his mood would be improved if he called me to whisper sweet nothings.
I do not share this sentiment with my friends.
Molly:I heard. really sad. I feel bad for him
Dezzie:You should text him with your thoughts and prayers
Dezzie:And boobs
Alyssa:Well maybe not right away with the titties
Dezzie:True, you gotta have some chill
Dezzie:But this is your time to shine
Molly:OMG you guys WTF??
Alyssa:You deny you two are in love?
Molly:um yes
Dezzie:Puhleeze every time I mention him you get all tragic
Molly:Do not. Stop slandering me
Dezzie:Okay well in other news rob has been acting weird
Molly:Weird how?
Dezzie:He keeps insisting on going in to his office even though it’s closed, like he can’t stand to be in the house with me
Alyssa:He might just be stir-crazy? Personally, I would kill to be able to go to an office. Murder. With bare hands
Dezzie:I don’t think it’s just that. He’s been snappish
Dezzie:Like permanent PMS
Dezzie:And drinking too much. Even for him. Our recycling bin is shameful
Dezzie:Makes me nervous cuz we’re gonna start IVF whenever the clinic reopens and it’s bad for sperm
Molly:Ugh i’m sorry! Have you talked to him about it?
Dezzie:He won’t admit anything is wrong
Molly:I wonder if it’s stress from his job?
Alyssa:Thinking the same thing. I’m sure he’s dealing with kids who’ve lost people. Must be absolutely godawful
Dezzie:You’re right. It’s def been tough for him
Dezzie:Probably being paranoid
Dezzie:Anyway gotta go
Molly:Love you dez. Call if you wanna talk more!
I’m tempted to reach out to Rob with a friendly “pay attention to your wife, how bout?” text. Normally he wouldn’t mind—he calls me all the time with questions about what to get her for her birthday or to tell me when she’s in one of her dark moods so I can check in—but I don’t want to meddle in their marriage if it’s something serious. It gives me a bad feeling that he’s checked out, since he’s usually the type of guy who leaps around for her attention like a puppy. Plus, he drinks too much in the best of circumstances. The idea of it getting worse is… not good.
I’m distracted from this by a new text from Seth.
Seth:Can you talk?
I break out into such a big smile my lips feel unfamiliar on my face.
I go to my bedroom, change out of my ratty T-shirt into a tank top that shows off my cleavage, and put on a little makeup. Then I FaceTime him.
It rings out a bit and I wonder if he doesn’t want to chat face-to-face, but then he answers.
He looks ragged.
His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is mussed, and he hasn’t shaved. It’s sexy, but I know this is not a great sign for a person of his disposition. He’s not the kind of guy who walks around in sweats.
“Hey,” I say.
He gives me a sad, tight-lipped smile. “Hey, Molls.”
That big, unfamiliar grin falls right off my face. He does not look happy to see me.
But maybe he’s just tired.
“How are you doing?” I ask tentatively.
He puffs out a breath. “Um. Not great.”
I didn’t expect him to be great, but after last night I didn’t expect him to look this torn up either.
“What’s going on?” I ask in my most sympathetic tone.
He sighs.
“I can’t stop thinking about last night.”
“Me neither,” I say softly.
He closes his eyes. “And I feel so guilty.”
My stomach drops.
“I think I made a mistake,” he goes on.
I lick my lips. My mouth has gone dry. I don’t want to ask, but I must:
“You mean, breaking up?”
He scratches his face with the back of his hand, scrunching up his eyes. He looks so miserable.
“No,” he says, to my profound relief. “It’s the right thing to do. But it’s just so sudden, you know?”
I nod, trying to keep my face neutral.
“And after yesterday, it’s like all I want to do is see you. Talk to you.”
Oh, thank God. I really thought this was going in another direction.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“But, Molly, I am two days out of an engagement.”
Relief turns to dread. His voice is full of self-loathing. I don’t know what to say.
“And obviously we didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, “and it was enjoyable—”
I grimace at my most intense orgasm ever being described as “enjoyable.”
“But I just feel like maybe this is all too much, too soon.”
“Ah,” I say.
He gives me an aggrieved look. “I don’t mean you—I mean me. I need to stop jumping into every single little thing like a relationship is a life raft.”
“Every single little thing?”
I feel ill.
“Fuck. I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not—you mean so much to me, Molly.”
I’m touched to hear him say this. Even though I know in my bones that what comes next is going to be brutal.
“But I need to be alone right now, figure out why I keep doing this, you know? Jumping into things.”
“Yeah. That makes sense,” I force out.
“And it’s not fair to drag you into it. It’s my mess, and I don’t want to mix you up in it.”
What is sad about this is that I know he would not be saying it if he didn’t feel like I do. That there is something big between us. Too big. At least for him. At least for right now.
Which is why I can’t fight it.
“Don’t worry about it. I totally understand.”
He rubs the stubble on his chin, looking exhausted. “You do?”
I do. I don’t want to, and I hate it, but I do.
“Yeah. It makes sense to have unresolved issues and to want to work through them.”
He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Molls, I feel like I used you.”
I laugh softly.
“You didn’t use me. If anything, I tricked you into performing sex acts on camera for my own selfish gratification.”
“You didn’t have to trick me, Molls. And I don’t regret it.”
“Me neither.”
He nods. “Okay. Well, I’m sorry about this. I really don’t want to send you mixed messages, or hurt your feelings, or—”
I can’t stand this pitying tenderness. I have to make him stop before I burst into tears. So I slap a wry smile on my face and hold up my hands.
“Whoa,” I say. “It was just cam sex, dude. We’re not dating or anything.”
That isn’t true, of course. It wasn’t just cam sex, at least not for me. But I don’t want him to think that I’m going to sit at home, pining for him. I do have dignity. And I won’t make him feel guiltier than he already does.
But he looks taken aback. Injured, almost.
“I guess it just meant something for me,” he says. “And that’s the problem.”
I don’t say anything. I want to cry.
He gives me that tight-lipped smile again.
“Bye, Molls.”
And with that, he ends the call.